


why are there no happy endings?

by viviolet



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, Medium awareness, Unicorns, i'll update character tags as we go since it'll be a lot, i've apparently decided that this is my brand, so just exactly what it says on the tin then, tempted to tag this as deconstructed fairy tale but that's kinda the whole point of the original
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viviolet/pseuds/viviolet
Summary: the unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and he lived all aloneor: the mighty nein but make it the last unicorn
Comments: 23
Kudos: 43





	1. The Hermit

**Author's Note:**

> look i made a meta where i was only half-kidding about this idea a couple of months back and it's been haunting me ever since. so here's my very self indulgent take that no one asked for. no idea how long this will take me or what my schedule will be like, but i'm pretty sure i'm just writing this for myself anyways

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and he lived all alone.

He was young, though not to mortals. The unicorn had just outgrown his sea foam coat and now resembled the whites of snow that falls in a gravestone in the dead of winter, cold and beautiful and only properly appreciated with a little bit of moonlight. But he was young, and his body had not yet forgotten how to move like the rolling waves of the sea. He was terrible and beautiful and he was free.

Free because he did not belong to any beck and call of nature the rest of the animals do. His kind were smaller than horses, more graceful than them too, with slender necks that held delicate faces. Thin legs and dandelion feathers were other typical features, but nothing was more distinguishing than the alabaster white horn that grew from an eight pointed above the eyes. His glowed with a seashell light, no matter the time of day. With it, he had slain the undead, healed poisons of the grieving heart that know no other way to close, and knocked down ripe pears for bear cubs too impatient for their mother to return.

Immortality is a funny thing. For a long time, all unicorns lived alone. Their bodies stopped aging after a certain point and they only fell under blades wielded by men, they had originally thought there was no purpose to companionship. But centuries of solitude weighs on you, and coming home to those you can rely on makes the world a less terrifying place. His family had taken refuge in the part of the woods he still lived in. He had a name, once, to distinguish him from his brother and sisters. No place is more enchanted than one where a unicorn is born, which made his home a very magical place indeed.

But now he was alone. One day, he had woken up and the rest of his family were all gone. He could barely recall what his mother and father sounded like, what it felt to be around other unicorns. He had no idea of the day, month, season, century it was, for he had no use for time as long as he was with his family and it was always spring in the forest. 

Or it had been. The vegetation was starting to turn purple-gray, the trees wound so tightly the sun was blocked out if you dared to venture deep enough. The generations of beast that had hunted, loved, had children, and died began to move away, to other words, where other, better, unicorns could watch over them. There had not been bear cubs for him to feed in a very long time.

He had forgotten his name. He lived alone in the lilac wood, and it was beginning to die.

The unicorn wondered if this could kill him too.

He was following a pair of men on horseback with long bows through the forest, hunting for deer. They wouldn’t find any, he was going to shield any that remained from them. But the unicorn had to keep himself hidden too; he’d grown up on stories of what kind of terrible things mortals had done to his kind. Men made him feel strange, a way of tenderness and terror that flowed through his body like it was an old thing, like his blood had been taken out and his heart was trying to pump tar.

“I mislike the feeling of these woods.” The elder declares, tossing his bright blond hair over his shoulder with a look of distrust in his eyes. “Creatures that live in a unicorn’s forest learn enough of their own magic to know how to hide.”

“Is this forest not like any other?” The younger complains from under his brown furred and feathered cloak, dropping his horses reins to pull the hood more tightly on his head. “Even if the unicorns ever were, they are long gone now.”

The leader shakes his head, like there is much he knows and little his companion understands. “Tell me why this part of the Savalirwood clings to life? The rest is withered, dead as if water hadn’t touched the soil in a century, yet here the flowers are in bloom and birds still chatter. I tell you, there is one unicorn left in the world and it lives in this forest.”

“If it’s under protection, we’ll catch nothing to feed the rest of the brigade.” The younger says, brow shifty as he takes in the woods with a new mind. “Let us hunt somewhere else.”

The blond pulls his horse to a halt while his companion ventures back. He scans the woods, eyes settling just over the thicket where the unicorn shelters. He worries of discovery, just for a moment, before he realizes that the man’s eyes are still dull, unable to see the unicorn right in front of him.

“Wherever you are, stay hidden you poor beast. This is no world for you. Save as much of the Savalir as you can, and good luck. For you are the last.”

The words hang in the air, long after his horse has galloped away to join the other. The unicorn had meant to follow them out, make sure they kept their promise. But he finds his cloven hooves fused to the earth as the blond man’s words wash over him. If this man speaks truth, then there is much more wrong with the world than a sickness in his home.

“I am the only unicorn there is?” He whispers to himself. These were the first words he had spoken in as long as he can recall, ever since he’s been alone.

From that moment of doubt, he could not find peace again. He began to speak again, but the sound of his voice was still so sore from disuse that it frightened him. The unicorn knew the dark paths of his forest well enough that he could swim them while blind if needed, and he took them now in an attempt to flee from himself and his traitorous thoughts.

Was he the last? No, that was ridiculous, his family was somewhere, there were others like him. This was not the only woods in the world. He couldn’t be…

Could he?

There was a clearing in the middle of his territory that was still green where he went to when he needed to think. The unicorn wondered if the rest were in hiding, somewhere far away and waiting for him. Had he forgotten something important? He knew he’d lost his own name, what if he had been told where to be and instead of remembering, the cobwebs in his mind have covered it, leaving him alone in this quiet clearing, with only the sounds of birdsong and bubbling water.

A creek ran through the center, and it was time for the flowers who fought for their existence by the water to bloom. The unicorn felt a pull to them, so he let it take him, as he was prone to do with many other impulses. It didn’t surprise him to see that he wasn’t the only creature seeking out their beauty, and the purple butterfly that was coasting down from the sunset sky would be welcome company.

“Hello, butterfly, welcome.” The unicorn coos as he lands on his nose. “Have you travelled very far?”

He squeaks with delight at being acknowledged. “Oh how very far I would travel, yes sir!”

The unicorn’s ears perk up at this, before the butterfly bursts into song. He’s a funny thing to listen to, with a voice so deep coming from a creature so small that the unicorn can forget himself for a moment, and follow the butterfly to the creek just to hear more of his tune before he remembers that he has new worries that chased him here.

“Have you seen others like me? Do you know my name?” He asks, before he catches himself.

Silly unicorn, asking questions of a butterfly. All they knew were songs and poetry, things they could hear but not see. Creatures of pretty words, not deep thoughts. He should know better.

Still, he lets himself listen to the song just a little longer, breathe in the open air once more before he has to return to the covered forest. When the melody ends, the unicorn turns with a swish of his tail and heads back to the direction of the trees.

“Making unicorns visible only to those who search and trust was the perfect finishing touch. Wish I could remember whose idea that was.” The butterfly’s deep voice is gone, replaced with a matronly tone that feels like a maiden’s arms tossed lovingly around his neck.

The unicorn doesn’t know how he knows, but it’s something rooted deep that he could never forget, like how to breathe. Maybe that was just how you recognized the one who gave you your shape and made you wild. “Melora, Wildmother.” He stretches his left leg forward and extends into a deep bow, horn nearly brushing the earth.

“I have such little time to speak with you, my sprout, so listen well.”

He blinks. “Do you know my name?” He doesn’t mean to sound so earnest when asking, but he’s just learning how to talk again. She’ll forgive him for the trespass.

The butterfly chuckles as they coast on a breeze to hover right by his ear. “Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart, you’re such wonderful clay to mold. But I would never have you forget your original shape, Caduceus.”

Caduceus… Yes, Caduceus. That was right. That was the name his mother had called him when he took his first shaky steps, what his father would hum as they foraged for berries, the name his aunt muttered when he needed help bathing, what his siblings would shout as they raced through the woods.

Caduceus. He supposed it was a good name, though he did not know what made one.

“Listen to me.” The butterfly glows as the voice of Melora pours out. “You can find the others if you are brave. They passed down all the roads, long ago as the Gorgon Bull ran close behind, covering their footsteps.”

Caduceus feels his ears press back, though he knows not why. “A Gorgon Bull? What’s that?”

“Hush for a moment more.” Caduceus feels as if someone strokes his cheek in an attempt to calm as the butterfly settles there. “This bull is the first of its kind, though I did not create him. Something stole my designs, gave him horns of a wild ox. He will use them to push the unicorns, all of the, to the ends of the earth. The king is in the counting house, counting out, counting…” The butterfly’s form shimmers and the deep voice from before returns as he bat his wings and flies off, continuing his earlier song.

He wanted to dismiss the story of the bull as just another song. But to deny Melora’s presence, to ignore Her very pointed instructions…

There wasn’t a choice to make. Not really. Which was a good thing, as unicorns were not meant to make choices. He had his name and an idea of where to start looking. Those were two things Caduceus hadn’t had in many, many seasons. He vowed to himself that he would come back as soon as he could, with the others or without. If the forest was dying without the unicorns, he would risk what he could to save it. To let it fall entirely was cruel, but to lose even part of the wood’s great majesty wounded him to deeply. If he brought back his family, maybe they could help fix it. Maybe he wouldn’t have to go very far. Maybe this Gorgon Bull was close.

Caduceus stole a final look over his shoulder to the Savalirwood. If he squinted in the moonlight, he knew he would see bunches of animals crowded in the tree line with him, silently begging for him to turn back. For a single heartbeat, it was very tempting. An eternity in the shade, tending to what creatures came his way, cloaking them in shadow when hunters grew too bold and forgot the magic of unicorns.

Then he thought of the dying forest. He thought of his family.

The unicorn took a deep lungful of the woodland air that still drifted towards him and began to run, holding that final breath in his mouth like it were a flower for as long as he could.


	2. Seven of Pentacles

Spring ran out in the meadow beyond the Savalir, summer turned to dust beneath his hooves as he traversed the winding desert, autumn came and went as he navigated an unknown forest, and he wouldn’t leave it and run into mortals again until winter too had passed.

The road he traveled seemingly had no end. He ran through villages, mountains, and flat country and never ran out of a pathway. The road pulled at his hooves like the tide, that fret of being swept out to sea always in the corner of Caduceus’s mind. It made him want to turn tail and race back, but Melora’s voice drove him forward. 

A year away from home is a long time for most anyone, especially if it’s your first time leaving. But Caduceus was a unicorn and had no beings but himself to tether him to the concept of time. It passed very quickly, and soon it was spring again.

No tongue of beast, leaf, or man speak of unicorns. Caduceus could find no trace of his kind, from the Savalirwood and beyond in the rest of the world. Terrible creeping doubt bites at his heels, keeps him moving day and night. If he’s too exhausted to stand, he’s too tired to sit with his own thoughts and worry.

Melora brought him forward. If he goes back, it’ll be Her disappointment he’ll have to face.

Little can kill a unicorn. Caduceus suspects that this might do it.

His feet were ready to give out early one morning, so he turned off the road to find a place to sleep. He’s normally a clever creature, he understands the importance of going undetected in places so filled with men. But a sight catches him that makes Caduceus forget himself that morning, addled mind too focused on his upcoming rest to make him remember his place.

A half-elven man is tending to a small garden. Manual labor clearly isn’t his usual trade, and Caduceus finds a small amusement in watching him. A great joy comes to him when the man looks up to him and his cheeks jump with glee at the sight of a unicorn.

They haven’t been forgotten. This half-elf knows what he is, may even know of others.

Hopeful thought is cut short when the man tugs his belt into a loop and begins to stalk towards Caduceus. His face is still plain with glee, an odd tactic to try to distract a unicorn for capture, but he supposes it’s an original one if nothing else. Caduceus dips his head, pretending to submit to the half-elf before he knocks him with a swing from his neck. Not with near enough force to harm, but the right amount to bring him to his knees, to give Caduceus the chance to take a few steps back while he figures out what his next move ought to be. 

_What_ do _you dream of doing with me, once you’ve got me?_ Caduceus muses to himself as the man pushes himself back to his feet.

This time he lunges for him, and Caduceus slips out of his reach as smooth as rain. “Steady now.” The man grunts as he pushes sweat away from gathering at his brow. “You’re a pretty little colt.”

“Colt?” That shocks Caduceus enough to make him speak, but the half-elf doesn’t seem to notice. “You take me for a horse? That’s how you see me?”

“Good horse.” The man hushes as he tries to draw near once more, arm holding the belt low in an attempt to hide it from sight. “I could feed you up, turn you into a proper thing for the fair.” The belt loop is thrown with surprising aim, it would land purchase on his neck if he were to allow it.

“A horse indeed.” Caduceus snorts, and snags his horn through the buckle of the belt. With his newfound leverage, he tosses the belt free. He makes sure to give the half-elf a pointed stare, one that would make himself known to any creature with an ounce of good will to realize what stands before them, before he turns off to flee further along the road.

He doesn’t have much more left in him, but it’s enough to take Caduceus away from the little village full of mortals who’d never laid eyes on a real unicorn. The thought that he could be seen by thousands but none would know him well enough to help find the rest of his kind put a shiver in Caduceus’s heart, the like of which would never have been allowed to grow back in his lilac woods. “Oh, I wish there was a creature to talk to right now.” He sighs as he settles down under the shade of a massive willow. “Even a butterfly would do.”

From that point forward, Caduceus vows to avoid towns unless there was no other way around them. Still, he finds himself racing away from the men, elves, halflings and others that give chase as they call him a colt. They never pursue him with the proper manner of a unicorn. No bleeding maidens to lure him out, but rather nets, rope and lumps of sugar. They would try to draw him close, then give chase on horseback when he bolted. That was always their mistake, for the mounts would try to throw their riders whenever they managed to catch his scent and race back to where they came from.

The horses always knew him.

And there was a comfort that came with his new accursed realization. Perhaps his kind had been seen across the lands, mortals just forgot what a unicorn looked like. He listens for tales of white mares and stallions, beautiful beasts that evaded capture. There’s not a whisper of this kind of activity, which does not bode terribly well, but at least Caduceus knows he’s no worse off.

He stumbles one day upon an untended herd of cattle. Caduceus takes this chance to ask them about the mysterious Gorgon Bull. The response he gets from the cows is vague nervousness backed up by very little factual information. He’s allegedly a very loud beast, which Caduceus supposes is a comfort. It’s normally very hard to sneak up on a unicorn, so he’ll at least know when this creature comes for him. The cows do make great company though, and point out the spots where the best grasses and clover grow.

Their guidance leads Caduceus just a little further down the road, and to a bed of cool grass watched over by a circle of aspen trees. The moon has long worked her way skywards, and Caduceus cannot ignore the pull to rest this time. He feels protected, watched over by the trees and things of nature that know how to care for a unicorn. Still, even though Caduceus is a heavy sleeper, he should have noticed the carts that pulled by, the bells that jangle and the moans of tired animals. Had he not been dreaming of home, maybe he would have woken sooner.

Instead it’s the rough cry of “What in the hells did we stop for?” that stirs Caduceus. He senses the presence of three beings near him, and that’s why he keeps his eyes closed at first. He’s quick as a river, but three versus one are odds he wouldn’t take most days.

A feminine voice, raspy with effort, not age, speaks. “What do you see, Vence?”

The first voice lets out a snort. “Dead horse. Best we feed it to the manticore, maybe the harpy.”

“Fool.” The woman is snappish, dismissive of this one. “And you, wizard?” Her tone takes a humorous spin right at the end, like she’s delivering some clever taunt.

The silence while she waits for a reply sits heavy, and Caduceus thinks he hears the sound of a hand striking heavy cloth before the owner of the third voice clears his throat, sounding startled.

“I – Ja, I see a horse.” He mutters. “Just – A white fohlen.”

The female voice tuts in disapproval. “A fool as well, but it’s all the same to me. You see a white horse.” Now that Caduceus has had the time to listen, he can detect a twinge of a similar accent in all three voices, like they’re not speaking their mother tongue. The second man carries it the strongest, he’s their newcomer, then. “The last cage has been empty since Trostenwald, we’ll take him for the carnival.”

“I need a rope.” The first voice, Vence, grumbles.

At that, Caduceus tries to open his eyes, but they feel as if they’ve been sewn shut. He presses his ears back as he struggles to stand, but his legs are oddly weak, like something’s weighing his body down.

The hesitant man speaks out again. “He’s trying to wake, Madame.”

“I’ll put a stronger sleep on him.” The woman says, and begins to chant in a language familiar to Caduceus’s ears.

She’s placing a spell on him, and a fairly powerful one at that. He tells his body to fight, to struggle, but no muscle responds to his command. Frayed lightning begins to scent the air, the tell-tale sign of a human caster forcing magic to do their will. As a pulsing sensation starts right below his horn, his consciousness gives up too and all Caduceus can feel is darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not used to writing such short chapters, but i'm trying to keep the pacing fairly tight so i'm hoping this will do the trick!!


	3. The Magician

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was not expecting this quick of a turnaround, but this chapter literally would not let me sleep last night until it was finished. we're going to have some pov shifts from here on out, which isn't something i would normally write so here's to hoping i don't totally botch it!!

Caleb pretends to be amazed as Madame Vess DeRogna makes a glowing blue horn grow out right beneath the unicorn’s real horn. Her’s is a cheap imitation of the real thing, curved and radiating artificial light. It is nothing compared to the moonstone nature of the true horn, and Caleb’s more than willing to bet it’s got twice as much magic contained within just the tip than DeRogna has in her entire body.

But now’s not the time for his sharp tongue or dry wit. Those two things are what landed him here, working a humiliating job for a wizard just to make ends meet, covered in muck on most days and always at DeRogna’s beck and call.

“Cage him.” DeRogna orders. “He won’t wake unless you fools touch him with your bare hands, use burlap to move and gloves if you must lay a hand on him.”

With that, she turns away and goes back to her cart, a small luxury of privacy that she can afford as their master. The door slams, and Caleb spends the next handful of minutes trying to make eye contact with the looming form of DeRogna’s brain-washed bodyguard. He has no luck, Madame DeRogna’s sleep is too light for this spell to be paused.

Vence is working the woven tarp underneath the sleeping body of the unicorn, curling blond hair falling out of its place and into his eyes. “Cursed thing, why should it matter if we touch it?”

“The touch of a mortal could wake him from the deepest sleep, even cast by a devil.” Caleb recites the rules of magic he’d been taught at a young age, tries to prevent his mind from taking him back to that gloomy tower. “And Madame DeRogna is no devil.”

He rolls his eyes at that. “That’s what she would like us to think. I still reckon we ought to feed him to the harpy.”

Caleb gives both horns a wide birth as he walks to the hindquarters of the unicorn to help lift the tarp. “Better not. Let’s hurry, dawn will come soon.”

The unicorn sleeps well after sunrise. Caleb knows this because he stays up the entire night watching him, even pretends to sleep when Madame DeRogna comes a few minutes after daybreak, the barbarian woman with glazed-over eyes at her side.

When the unicorn wakes, his face falls immediately into sadness. He seems afraid to touch the iron bars, instead tries pacing the cage several times before coming to terms with his current situation. The unicorn settles as quietly as he rises, but with a small sad sigh as his carnation eyes sweep across the makeshift campsite of the carnival. The sense of grief it brings upon Caleb is enough to stir his useless heart into a desire for action. He can’t let this being stay trapped in a cage, not something so wild and inherently good.

A fate like this is something creatures like Caleb deserve. Not a unicorn. 

Vess DeRogna only deeply rests while the Midnight Carnival entertains. She doesn’t need to waste her energy controlling her illusions and binding the creatures while Vence can channel the power of belief through his honeyed tongue, so she normally takes this time to fall into a solid sleep. Their nights of entertainment are random and change as frequently as the road does. However, the capture of the unicorn drew them close enough to a township that Caleb was sent out to perform small tricks to draw a crowd, and Vence wove between onlookers to spread word of a traveling circus stationed in the woods, where creatures of the night were brought to light.

Vence is good at what he does, and word had spread enough to justify a small show tonight. Once they’d been checked with the carnival’s security, Caleb had been required to use his connection with magic that could shape the fabric of reality to duplicate balls and juggle to keep the guests entertained until the show was ready to start. 

He’s resting now, having been relieved from duty once a large enough crowd gathered. The guests of the carnival are being led around the grounds, from cage to cage as Vence plays tour guide and tells horrifying tales of all the beasts they hold. Caleb’s heard these ramblings enough to know them by heart, and he knows exactly how much time he has to convince the unicorn that he can help him break free.

Caleb knows he will catch all different types of hell for this if word gets back to DeRogna, but he’s cautiously optimistic that it won’t. Vence is still short with her, not happy about having to spend most of the last night awake to cage what he so foolishly perceived to be a half-dead horse. He’s taking a chance on her guardian not turning on him but… Caleb knows innate hatred when he sees it. He thinks knows her well enough to know there’s very little that woman would do for DeRogna if she had her own say in things.

He keeps his head low as not to draw attention. Caleb has to approach this creature carefully, prove it can trust him, or he’ll have risked his hide for nothing. Slowly raising his fist, he gently knocks on the iron bars to draw the unicorn’s attention towards him before he speaks.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Caleb whispers, knowing his eyes fall back on the cart where Madame DeRogna is sleeping. “But tell me what you see.”

The unicorn shakes his delicate head, pressing away from the side of the cage Caleb stands.

“Look at them.” He begs, risks waving a hand out towards Vence and the guests he’s managed to swindle. “Tell me what your fellow legends look like to you.”

Caleb knows the illusions well. He may have only watched DeRogna place a handful of them, but he’s no stranger to her type of magic. After all, his master and her were students together. If you look too closely at the manticore’s teeth, a starving lion is revealed, roaring out of hunger rather than bloodlust. The first creature Caleb had been responsible to care for, the horrifying Nergaliid Kylre, is nothing more than a miserable oversized bullfrog.

The guests are currently crowding the white dragon Vence calls Gelidon, spinning tales of his of terrible ice breath. It’s really a crocodile, a thing perfectly capable of growing large and being terrifying in its own right. But not like this, not trapped on land in a cage and barely fed enough to be kept alive.

He watches the unicorn turn his head from cage to cage, squint in realization of each lie. “Such strange sorcery, more seeming than actual magic, perhaps she cannot actually create, just appeal to desire…” The unicorn takes in his fellow prisoners as he realizes something and whips his head back to Caleb. “We’re speaking.”

It doesn’t sound like a question, but Caleb still answers it. “We are.”

“You know me?” The unicorn sounds terribly hopeful, just for a moment.

It takes everything Caleb has not to burst out in unhappy laughter. “Ja, I know you. If I were blind I would know what you are.”

“Very few do.” The unicorn replies, voice so serious it sounds as brittle as ice. “I am called Caduceus.”

“I am Caleb the Wizard.” He holds himself proudly for a moment longer, but the façade crumbles as he continues. “You wouldn’t have heard of me. I’m an entertainer for the sightseers as they gather for the real show.”

The unicorn tilts his head, pondering this. “I see no reason for that to make you unnotable. A talent for entertainment is a good gift.”

“It’s not much of a job for a real wizard, but well…” Caleb doesn’t notice as he does it, but he rubs at the sleeves of his long coat. “I’ve had worse.”

After Gelidon fails to terrify with his wheezing breaths that smell more of fish than snow, Vence turns the sightseers to a lone bipedal creature, hunched posture and doglike face that snaps at her cage bars when approached, earning cries of terror and interest from the guests. The gnoll’s rotten teeth shine in the moonlight as she lets out a crowing laugh.

“She’s different.” Caduceus remarks as his eyes narrow. The gnoll looks more real than the others, you need to physically shake your head to clear it of the illusion. What lies beneath is a neglected hyena, pelt long gone mangey and littered with scars but eyes still bright enough to make one hesitant from crossing her.

“It’s the power of belief.” Caleb tells him as he watches the creature sadly. “DeRogna cannot make much, but she’s very convincing. The hyena believes herself to be a gnoll as much as any of these guests.” She’d weep if they withdrew wonder, but Caleb doesn’t need to tell the unicorn that. Anyone who spends enough time around magic knows the sting of when it goes ignored.

A terrible cawing takes up the carnival grounds, drawing everyone’s attention. It comes from the cage directly opposite of the unicorn, and the gaze that stares at them from blood red eyes is as cold as iron. A dark lavender bird with a timeless face clutches his talons to the wood perch. His hair, what remains of it, around his hateful half human, half bird face is a deep indigo. The ears are brought to points, and the knives of plumage hide bits of his being that don’t belong, like the serpentine scales and iridescent hues of a peacock. He bears sharp teeth, and a serrated tongue reveals itself when he caws once more. He nearly glows with magic, but looking at him for too long brings upon a sensation of the world going dark and soil filling one’s lungs. Those solid red eyes are locked on the unicorn and the smile that takes his face is a cold, sharp one.

“He’s real.” Caduceus dumbly remarks once he can finally tear his eyes away from the outburst of misery.

Caleb knows that if he looks half as terrified as he feels under the harpy’s gaze that the unicorn will have little faith in him. “Yes. The harpy Lucien.” He whispers. “DeRogna caught him when he was asleep, same way she took you.”

“She shouldn’t have meddled with one immortal thing, let alone two.” The entire cart shudders as a weight is pressed to the side. “Chatting with the new attraction, are we Widogast?”

Caduceus cranes his neck in the cart to peek past the bars. The woman is tall, with rippling muscle and jet black hair in an elaborate system of braids. If her stature didn’t give it away, the sword swung across her back denotes her as security. She has mismatched teal and violet eyes that stand out against her pale skin that’s been adorned with dark face paint. Caleb’s surprised by the ferocity of their color; it’s been a long while since he’s seen them unclouded.

“Yasha.” Caleb replies, short with her out of reflex more than any real malice.

“You know how it works, Caleb. I am bound to her will unless she is resting, and then I am free to do whatever I please, unless it is something that would do DeRogna harm.” She sounds bored as she recites this, like she’s not repeating the information for the wizard’s pleasure.

Caleb attempts to look casual, shoves his hands in the pockets of his ragged coat. “What business is it of yours, if a sad bastard wants to chat with a horse?”

“I know you can see him.” She says, gaze locked on Caduceus. “I’m surprised DeRogna believed you. She thinks I won’t do anything because she has Molly, but…” The woman’s eyes fall back on the harpy’s cage, sadness plain to read on her face. “I know she couldn’t kill an immortal, but I fear she may have killed a part of him.” When she can look at the unicorn once more, her intent is obvious.

She can’t allow DeRogna to harm Caduceus in that same way.

“The truth always melts her magic.” Caleb points out, trying chase back the sense of hopelessness looming over the three of them.

Yasha snorts. “Yes, it does. That’s how Mol – Lucien plans to break free. And you, unicorn, can’t be in that cage when he does.”

A shout from the harpy’s cage startled all three. “Hey, go on! Get!” Vence shouts as he began to take the small tour group their way, towards Caduceus’s. “I know what she told you two!”

Yasha grunts in lieu of an actual acknowledgement, but whispers to Caduceus as she goes to wander towards the entrance of the carnival. “Try not to be afraid.”

“Do nothing until you hear from us.” Caleb begs him under his breath has he backpedals away from the cage, unconvincing smile plastered on his face in an attempt to look friendly.

Darkness was overtaking the carnival, which only made Caduceus’s false horn glow more electric in the air.

Vence gives a dramatic wave as he introduces the final attraction. “The unicorn.” He says with a bow, before stepping aside to let the suddenly shy crowd draw closer.

The sorrow in the crowd’s face is obvious, even from Caleb’s retreated position. He wonders how much they recognize him, if they truly do see the unicorn. But their gaze is affixed on the false horn, blind to what wonder is in front of them by DeRogna’s appeal to their base assumptions. Still, to see the truth with help from a falsehood can feel incredible. Caleb’s certainly fallen victim to that before. One woman raises her child to get a better look. The child’s shock of red hair reminds Caleb of himself, and he wonders if his parents ever tried to take him to a carnival, to see something as grand as a unicorn.

He blames the tears that gather in the corner of his eyes on the brightness of the horn, the wonder of seeing an actual unicorn. It has nothing to do with his mother and father, not the life that was stolen from all three of them.

If Caleb scratches the faded scars on his skin raw while he tries to rest until DeRogna wakes, that’s his business.


	4. The Hanged Man

Yasha feels her free will retreat into herself as a stirring noise rises from Vess DeRogna’s caravan cart.

She’s been with Molly ever since he found her trying to get herself torn to shreds out in the moorland after her tribe did what they did to Zuala and Yasha had ran. He’d been patient with her, not entirely understanding her grief, but seeking out reasons for her to stay with him. He’d been so much brighter back then, full of life and a terrible sense of humor that left Yasha groaning more than it did laughing. But Molly had been so much fun while still being kind, and watching an immortal still managing to find a zest for life had given Yasha purpose when she was so desperately without one. With no one left in the word to care for, they tended to one another. Two sharp edges going soft, remembering the beautiful things about the world through one another.

She’s been with the carnival ever since that cursed night when she had fallen asleep on watch. Vence, with his skinny form, had managed to sneak up and nearly bash her head in while DeRogna compelled Molly into a sleep he couldn’t rouse from while she caged him. They’d been ready to kill Yasha when he woke up and nearly done so when Molly managed to stir. He threatened to bust out of the cage and eat DeRogna’s heart when they’d offered him a trade. Stay still, and Yasha would live to see the next sunrise and the one after that.

At least, that was what she’d been told. Yasha had the misfortune of being unconscious for the entire thing. But Molly had sworn by it, when he was still himself, when he could still speak words that meant things, and he promised he didn’t regret it. The enchantments are too strong and DeRogna has been torturing Molly for too long for there to be any hope of him breaking free now. Yasha’s not trusted here. Another part of the trade-off is that DeRogna has her mind most waking hours and even the time allowed by years on the open road hasn’t given her enough control to break Molly out. Yasha’s never even tried to run. She’d have to leave Mollymauk, and that price wasn’t worth it.

Caleb had joined their roving band of pathetics not long after she’d been sworn into service, but it had taken a long time for him to warm up to her. She knows she’s awkward, but Yasha suspects it runs deeper than surface level appearances. DeRogna sometimes calls him by a different name that makes his spine go ramrod straight and sweat collect on his brow, but Yasha knows better than to ask about it, even on slow nights.

And the last few nights had not been slow. What with their new unicorn, a real thing DeRogna still cannot resist rubbing her greasy illusions all over, and the show that has just finished, Yasha can feel change on the air, not dissimilar to the sensation of the electricity that bogs you down just before a thunderstorm. But the change is not now, not when DeRogna stirs from her deep slumber and Yasha’s body becomes someone else’s. She’s got a heavy night cloak tossed over her arm, and she waits for the Madame to throw open the cart door and make herself known to the miserable beasts she’s had chained for so long.

“Vence!” Her voice is sharp, cutting through the dark, starless night like a hurling fireball. “We’re running short on feed, you and the miserable excuse for a wizard don’t get your share of the profits until after we resupply.”

“Fine.” Vence says flatly, eyes lurking back on the circle of cages. “Check on the damn harpy.”

DeRogna rolls her eyes. “I’ve got him under my magic, you really ought to quit your whining.”

“I don’t care how man damn spells you’ve put on him, I think we should still get rid of it! I think about it all the time, what he’ll do to us, I can feel him working loose.” His eyes flick towards Yasha now, and she watches as his nerves grow threefold. “I don’t know if you could barter with him for her safety again.”

DeRogna looks bored as she pulls her evening cloak from Yasha’s ready arm and ties it around herself. “No other mage holds a harpy captive, and none ever will. I will be keeping him, and as long as I have him you will make me some coin off it. I’ll feed him a piece of her liver every day if that’s what it takes.”

If Yasha had her body, DeRogna would be dead before she could even lay a finger on her.

Vence snorts, though it only makes him sound more on edge as he slides away in the direction of his measly pile of belongings. “And what if he demands your liver, Madame?”

“I’ll feed him hers anyway.” DeRogna says. “Harpies aren’t very bright; he won’t know the difference.” She walks the opposite direction, towards the circle of cages. She’s heading to her prize, she always smothers Molly with attention after the shows. Her enchantments require empowerment so she must renew them every handful of days.

Yasha follows, that terrible feeling in her gut still too weak to combat the tug DeRogna has on her mind. She telegraphs as much hate as she can muster into her eyes. She knows Yasha only follows her because she has no choice in the matter, but it never hurts to remind her.

When DeRogna looks over to her while cataloging every aspect of Mollymauk’s cage, she laughs. “Anger won’t help you now, girl. If he tries to escape, I can turn him into wind, snow or music and same goes for you. He will never know his body as long as I live.”

At that moment, his cage begins to pulsate. Mollymauk screams unintelligible words at them as he unfolds his neglected wings and uses his magic for the first time in weeks. The iron bars begin to wriggle, bending more like a river than metal ever should.

_Yes Molly._ Yasha thinks to herself, making sure to keep her arms folded and expression unchanging. _You can do it Mollymauk, break through_.

DeRogna’s hands are on the cage, smoothing the bars back into iron while thunder crackles from her fingertips, drowning out the screeching. When Molly throws his body towards her, she takes two steps back before running into Yasha’s solid form.

This has the misfortune of reminding the half-elven woman of one of her many tricks, and her fingers are in Yasha’s hair to tug her down to the ground and then there’s the cool sensation of a blade being pressed to her neck. The fight immediately goes out of Molly, and he folds his tattered wings in before hopping to the ground, trying to stick is clawed foot out of the cage so he can touch Yasha.

It’s how they used to check on each other, when they were free and Yasha was having more night terrors, or in the early days at the carnival, before DeRogna had tortured Lucien into her friend’s body. If they were smarter, they would have come up with something more discrete, so DeRogna wouldn’t be able to read them so easily.

Once she’s accomplished what she desires, DeRogna throws Yasha to the mud and the blade vanishes into thin air. “You are mine!” She crows at the harpy. “If you kill me, you are _still_ mine!”

At some point in the commotion, the unicorn had been awoken. He’s pressed into the back corner of his cage, eyes wide in hurt and nose flared like he can smell the fear in the air. Maybe he can. Yasha picks herself up out of the dirt and looks back to the corrupted form of the creature that once saved her life. She feels her heart break once more, like it will never stop, like it will never get over this wound.

When the time comes, she’ll have to choose. And she knows what the right choice is. But it’ll kill her, just a little, to let him go. Even if he is Lucien. Even if he is changed forever.

Not for the first time, but the first for her own selfish reasons, Yasha wishes the unicorn hadn’t been captured here.

DeRogna turns to leave, but a sickening smile curls on her face when she notices the standing unicorn. He’s watching them, eyes endless pools of pink, unreal as any immortal thing. It reminds Yasha of how Molly used to watch her when they first met, when she was weighed down with grief and guilt, when he couldn’t understand her desire at the time to stop existing. If any part of Mollymauk remains in the body of the harpy, Yasha wonders if he understands her now.

“That harpy is as real as you are, dearie.” DeRogna crones as she pulls herself close to the bars. ”Just as immortal, just as easy to capture.”

The unicorn blinks at her once, and shakes his delicate head. “You should not boast. Your death sits in that cage, and he can hear you.”

“Oh, he’ll kill me one day or another. Hells, maybe she’ll surprise me and do it instead.” DeRogna nods to Yasha, and what Yasha wouldn’t do to have her body back and snap the miserable woman’s neck right here and now. “He has to live the rest of forever knowing that I caught him. And I’m not the worst thing in this world.” DeRogna is pleased with herself. “How’s that for immortality?”

Yasha wants to stop the clawed hand as she sees it dart out towards the bars DeRogna painfully grabs the unicorn’s face, just out of range to have her eyes gouged out by his horn.

“You were out on the road hunting for your own death, and I know where it awaits you. I know him… that one. You should be thanking me.” Her brown hair is falling loose from the points in her ear she normally keeps it tucked behind, and now hangs in her face like she’s trying to come off as even more frightening than she’s got any right to be.

The unicorn doesn’t even try to fight back, just blinks as he stares deep into the foul woman’s eyes. “Do you speak of the Gorgon Bull?” He asks, voice young, hopeful like he still hasn’t come to terms with being thrown in a cage. “Please tell me if you do, and where he is if you are.”

DeRogna snorts. “You know of him, the Gorgon Bull of King Ikithon. He’ll not have you. You belong to me!” The way his skin bends under her nails lets Yasha know that she’s pressing with even more force, she’d be worried about DeRogna crushing his jaw if the woman had any actual strength.

“You know better than to believe that.” He’s so gentle and soft, and Gods this woman isn’t worth his patience. “Let me and these shadows of beasts go. They’ve got nothing left to do but die. And…” The unicorn tears his head out of DeRogna’s clutches like it was nothing, like he could have done it all along. “Him too. I cannot see him caged. We’re two sides of the same magic, even with whatever you’ve managed to do to twist his heart and make him think that pain has made him who he is.”

He's looking at Mollymauk the same way Yasha often does, with regret and grief. Like he understands that this Lucien persona DeRogna has given him isn’t real, isn’t how he’d live his life if free. The unicorn _knows_ , how does he know like that when Yasha can’t even make Caleb see like that?

“Ah yes, and where would my carnival go?” DeRogna’s smile is so sharp, for a moment Yasha thinks her to have grown fangs. “You think this was my dream the first time I made reality bend to my will? I’ll carve out the innards of this miserable bitch,” Her grip falls to Yasha and just for a moment it’s almost enough to draw her blood, almost enough to let her fight back, and then it’s gone, “Bren, or whatever name he goes by now, Vence too. There’s very little in this word I would not mutilate in order to keep myself.” DeRogna rages, fury building in the corner of her eyes.

“I heard you offer her liver, earlier.” The unicorn says, pivoting around the subject like it’s nothing, half-lidded eyes never leaving DeRogna’s even at the crest of her fury. “Such a shame, I assumed you to be smarter than that.”

“I’m sure you’re not saying what I think you are.” DeRogna practically growls.

The unicorn tilts his head like he’s misheard her. “It’s just, you clearly know magic. You should know that real magic is never made when someone else’s liver is offered up. We tear out our own, and don’t expect it to be returned. If you were a true practitioner, you would understand.” He jerks his head slightly, like he’s come to a realization. “Oh but I’ve forgotten. It’s all illusions here. No meat behind anything. None of this magic is _real_.”

Not a witch or wizard on this word hasn’t laughed at Vess DeRogna and her homemade horrors. But not a single one would have dared to do it to her face.

The half-elf’s breathing becomes labored as she presses her entire form to the bars, in what looks like an attempt to pass through them. The unicorn just stays back, calm as anything and doesn’t rise to the very easy opportunity to gouge out her eyes, like Yasha would have.

“And yet.” She spits. “I’ve managed to trick you, and him, while keeping my liver.”

“Madame.” In her captor’s distracted state she finds control over her limbs so Yasha places her hand on the woman’s shoulder, practically gritting her teeth to speak her piece. “The unicorn and the harpy, maybe they are not for us- “

“Who are they for, then?” DeRogna demands, terrible gaze boring into Yasha’s mind and making her nearly drop to her knees in pain. “Who would know them without me? Man would see him bridled like a riding horse and to carry out errands until the food runs out in winter, and they’d attempt to slaughter him! It takes cheap carnival tricks, a near waste of my magic, for folk to see a real unicorn these days.”

The unicorn has only dips his head. “We were already special. We were already known. We don’t need you.”

“No, you don’t. You just need me if you want to stay alive.” DeRogna is smug as she turns her back, walking away with Yasha forced to follow. “The Gorgon Bull will know you when he sees you. You should thank me for protecting you.”


	5. Five of Swords

Caduceus has a hard time finding any meaningful rest, but he does have to blink sleep from his eyes in the final hours of darkness at the rattling at his cage. The wizard is there, the one with real potential… Caleb.

He’s hard to make out in the dark, but his piercing blue eyes make the task easier. “I’m sorry.” He whispers, voice rough. “I couldn’t get away any sooner, she’s set Vence on me, I had to come up with a riddle to keep him occupied.”

“You’re forgiven, I fear my body is beginning to betray me.” Caduceus tries to stretch his neck out to the man, but his muscles ache so and the headache that’s been pounding since he grew the false horn intensifies. “I’ve never been under a spell before, I have not been in a world where it took such a falsehood to know me.”

“I’m sorry.” Caleb wraps his hand around the bars of the cage, Caduceus suspects a substitute for a comforting touch. “There is much misjudgment in our world, no? I must have been destined to know you for a true unicorn when I first laid eyes on you, to know I can trust you. But you were meant to see me as a traitor and a clown, which makes me so. Your enchantment, this _thing_ she’s done to you,” Caleb waves his hand at the false horn, “This will vanish as soon as you are free. The same is not so easy for what you have lain on me. But I have read much, and my mother always told me, an einhorn knows the difference between the false shining and what is true.“ He dare not raise his voice above a whisper, but somehow it’s enough to drown out the battering of the harpy’s wings and the miserable moaning of the rest of this unwilling carnival.

The pair look at one another, really look, before Caduceus decides out of instinct more than any deeper wisdom that’s usually available to him. “I think you are my friend. Will…” He nearly is afraid to ask, couldn’t take the rejection. “Will you be able to help me?”

“Oh, if not you, no one.” Caleb laughs under his breath like it’s a joke. “We’re one another’s last chance.”

Word games makes his head hurt. Why men are so averse to speaking plainly, Caduceus will never understand. “Can you truly set me free?”

“DeRogna doesn’t think so. She sees me as a fraud, but I too am real, like you and like Lucien. Not exactly like, nowhere near as powerful, but it’ll do in this pinch.”

“What about Yasha?” Caduceus peers around for her, but can find no sight of her braided black mane amongst the dark iron cages.

Caleb shakes his head. “DeRogna still has her hold over her, and will not relent it for another several days. She will know where she is, and you will be back in this cage and I will go back to playing a fool. If we are to take this chance, we must leave her behind.”

“I don’t want to leave without her.” Caduceus shakes his head, looking back at the wizard. “The half-elf offered her liver to the harpy; she’ll destroy her if that means keeping him.”

“I cannot save you and her tonight, I must choose.” Caleb’s determination is now taking over as he digs through a component pouch on his hip. “If DeRogna was sleeping, it would be a different story, but I think Yasha will run the moment the harpy makes his final stand.”

“She could leave, this whole time?” Caduceus is bewildered when wizard’s head bobs up and down in the affirmative. “Why stay?”

Caleb looks at him grimly as he claps his hands together. “For Molly.”

Before Caduceus can even puzzle that out, Caleb begins to mutter some arcane words under his breath. It’s new magic, not the type that raised Caduceus, but their power is undeniable as new visions take place in the night and a glow of daylight is emitted from the bars that hold him.

For a moment, the cage around him fades and the trees from the Savalirwood, back when it was still healthy, appear all around. When Caduceus looks over his flank, an assembly of animals are watching hopefully, a single brown bear amongst them with a playful grin. His heart grows as light as the mist above the ocean, he is home and free and the sky is wide above him and – but wait. His body is tense with preparation to leap, but it’s still night, the sky shouldn’t be this bright. Caduceus blinks twice, and the vision is gone and the ragged red-haired wizard is shaking his head on the other side of the wall of bars.

“I would have like that to be the spell that freed you.” Caleb sounds mournful, but he’s already got a song of magic dancing off his lips, trying another spell.

When Caleb places his hands on the bars his jaw tightens, and they’re pulled away twice as fast. The acrid smell in the air is one of burning flesh, made clear by the red-hot heat his palms now bear.

“Godsdamnit.” The wizard curses, then forces his voice to go light. “I can never do the accent right, I just had to be born Zemnian. Eins, zwei, drei, let’s hope third time is the charm.”

Caduceus tries to not read too deeply in how unsurprised of the pain Caleb is, how quickly he tries to play off his charred flesh as the result of a slip into another tongue. “Once more?”

Caleb closes his eyes as he digs through the pouch once again. He blindly dusts the cage with a pearlescent powder, humming words that sound to Caduceus like bells ringing underwater. The cage begins to shrink, and while Caduceus cannot record any movement, he can watch the space he has to stand rapidly disappear. He feels as if they were drawing in like a morning tide, and for a terrible moment, he suddenly fears that the cage will shrink around his heart and trap him here forever.

“Caleb.” Caduceus does his best to keep his voice calm so not to frighten him. “The bars?”

The blue eyes flash open and he’s swearing as loudly as he dare as he pulls his hands back and tries to stop the casting of his spell. “I dare not try again, if I were to bring you harm...” He turns away and speaks as if only to himself. “My master and this madame, they made no mistake in me.”

“Try again.” Caduceus pleads as he paws through the bars. He can sense the magic, it’s just hard to see under the lays of self-doubt and bitterness Caleb has swaddled himself in. “You are my friend, please try once more.”

“I had hoped to give you a show of my talent so you might desire the services of a wizard such as myself.” Caleb sighs as he waves air at the powder to blow it away from the cage. “All I have left to offer you is the aid of a second-rate pickpocket.” He procures a heavy ring of rusted keys, obviously stolen for nothing other than how foolish he looked holding them.

It was then the unicorn realized that every single cage in the Midnight Carnival had gone silent, all staring at him. He could hear the sound of talons scrapping metal, which could only be the harpy. “Hurry.” Caduceus whispers.

Caleb has the first key in the lock, but it would not turn. Swearing to himself some more, he selected another key. They both were taken aback by the cry released from metal. “Some magician!” The lock was cackling, DeRogna’s voice emitting from its keyhole.

“Oh, turn blue.” Caleb mumbles as he turns the key in the lock, snapping it open and breaking the spell. “You’re free, step down.”

As Caduceus did as he said, Caleb drew back as if struck with wonder. “Oh.” The wizard’s eyes shine with the reflection of moonlight off Caduceus’s bone-white pelt. “It was different, with the bars. You were smaller, not so – oh. Scheisse.”

Caduceus felt his body come back to him as all four hooves stood on the earth, illusion finally washing off him like water on a duck’s back. Dimly, he was aware that Caleb was speaking, but the sense of home was overwhelming as the grasses stirred to life beneath his hooves and the trees bent their branches towards him as he began to glow. If he could bring this light back home to the Savalir, maybe it would be enough, maybe he was just supposed to leave, realize this and come back, maybe Melora hadn’t meant what She said.

But he was caged. The force of the thought hits him so brutally. If he is to ever be captured like that again, his home is done for. No, he needs to wake up from this fool’s dream and get back on the path.

“Alright Caleb, I give up, what disappears as soon as you say its name?” The blond barker’s voice is as gritty as a boat bottoming out on a rocky shoreline and it drives Caduceus away, into the shadow of another cage. Vence can only see Caleb and the magically shrunken, abandoned cell. “Fool of a wizard, what do you think you’ve done? She will string you with barbed wire and make you a necklace for the harpy!” Vence is practically screaming now, looking borderline hysterical at the empty cage.

“Really.” Caleb says dully. “If that’s all, then it doesn’t sound so bad.”

There’s the rustling of dead leaves against the earth as Vence throws himself at Caleb, and a solid thud as the ring of keys connected with the other man’s temple as they began to struggle on the edge of the clearing, filling the once quiet carnival with noise that betrayed their nighttime activities. Caduceus hears rather than really observes this exchange. For, the moment Caleb had told him to run, he had gone to the cages.

In front of him, the ferocious manticore was whimpering and crawling on her belly. Caduceus touched the point of his horn, the true one, the only one remaining, to the lock. There was a click to indicate it had opened, and he was gone, off to the Nergaliid without hesitation, the dragon and the rest. Freedom from a cage also meant their illusions were gone, so off wandered a lion, giant bullfrog and crocodile amongst others.

None of them thanked Caduceus, and he did not watch them go off into the night.

Only the hyena refuses to meet his eye, and for her Caduceus would risk calling out through her open door. She’s mangled and half feral, trying to show off a scrap of intelligence by carving sigils into a bone given to her. Caduceus does not know much of the ways of man, but he knows the words she has created do not exist in any language, for he would be able to read it. The markings are attractive, if you’re the right person, but nothing of any meaning.

“This isn’t real. Freedom is better.” Caduceus begs her.

The gnoll opens her mouth to laugh, but whatever noise she might make is drowned out by the beating of wings. The harpy was calling his power to him, in a way that made Caduceus think of a folding wave drawing sand within right before it crashes on the shore. As the golden moon throws itself through the clouds to properly illuminate the abandoned carnival, the unicorn could properly see him. Purple hair gone even more wild, plumage of infinitely dizzying hues as the aspects of peacock and snake mingle with ragged purple harpy, bloodred eyes never looking more alert.

When Caduceus looks at him, he knows. This is Lucien.

“No!” A muted voice, Caleb’s, is coming from across the carnival. “Run, he’ll kill you if you set him free.”

Caduceus could barely hear the wizard’s warning, but realizes he doesn’t care. He’s being drawn to him, like some kind of wrong dream where he embraces his end. Suddenly, Caduceus is struck with the idea of what it might feel like to die, for the harpy before him has surely caused incalculable amounts of death and chaos, just as he as a unicorn came from a lineage of healers and bringers of light.

He shakes his head. He had never thought of death so often before, when he was young. When the Savalirwood was full of unicorns, he had never wondered what it might be like to stop. When the world was right. Caduceus blinks away the wetness that threatens to gather in his eyes, and looks upward.

For an instant, he stops beating his wings and gathering magic. Ice hangs in the air, and Caduceus feels both the chill of death and impossibly alive as those eyes sink into his own.

“Set. Me. Free.” Lucien hisses. “We are brothers, you and I.”

With a tap of his horn, the lock dissolves just like the rest. Lucien releases a guttural squawk, and the cart collapsed in as he burst from it, door of the cage ignored. He flies up towards the moon, dark feathering making him almost disappear into the night sky. He makes a single pass over the carnival, before locking eyes with Caduceus once more.

“Brothers.” Caduceus challenges him as he rears back on his hind legs, taking in the sight of the lavender harpy with wonder, not terror like he had before when he only knew him as a caged thing.

That’s how they wind up circling themselves, like two dying stars, each daring the other to fall first. Caduceus catches himself reflecting off that metallic purple breast and can feel the harpy shining on the moonlight of his back. The air around them goes funny, as is the nature of two immortal but opposite things, nothing feels real except for the two of them. A single laugh bubbles from the sky, sounding airy and full of delight, and Caduceus is lucky enough to look up just in time to catch the last bit of Mollymauk be pushed out from those impossibly red eyes. A terrible cry comes from the beak of the harpy, and he pulls himself in to dive down on the unicorn, talons outstretched.

He never makes purchase on Caduceus’s glowing white pelt. A woman throws herself between the pair with just enough time to raise her forearm to her face to prevent herself from being blinded by the daggers of claws that draw her blood.

“Molly!” Yasha cries, her voice breaking somewhere between heartbroken and relieved. But she is loud, her voice carries and that will have consequences.

Her spine goes ramrod straight, and the haze that was hidden in the corner of her eyes completely clouds over as a noxious chuckle comes from the opposite side of the carnival. The Madame of the carnival stands, wrapped in robes and arms outstretched as she reveals herself in the moonlight, one arm outstretched towards Yasha. Caduceus wonders if he were to touch his horn to whatever anchor point of DeRogna’s spell, it would fall away like her locks on the cages of her miserable captives, but he has no way of knowing what Yasha has been bound with.

“Not alone!” DeRogna practically crows as she takes in the two freed immortal creatures. “You never could have freed yourselves alone! I held you _both_!”

The harpy tosses his naked head in the night sky as DeRogna speaks. He turns impossibly, feathers shining as sharp as knives as he falls on her with the force of a meteor. When he strikes, she’s not as prepared as Yasha. There is no arm to protect her eyes.

She breaks like a stick. All that misery and magic bent at her fingertips, and Vess DeRogna dies as easily as every other mortal thing.

“Run. You must run now.” The woman at his side whispers, she is such like a child and her face – these mortals with their faces Caduceus wonders if he will ever find one that does not look too young – is collapsing into what it must have looked like when she worried as a babe. But, more importantly, Yasha’s gaze is clear. Whatever magic that subdued her had died with DeRogna.

“No. Not without you two.” Caduceus replies as he begins to walk away from the scene Lucien is making in front of them with all the urgency of a mycologist left to wander a forest full of old-growth logs.

Yasha shakes her head even as her feet pick up to follow as they make the few paces to meet Caleb. “You don’t want me, I’m terrible.”

“You wanted to free me.” Caduceus replies simply, for it was how he saw it. “You saw me for what I was.”

“Let’s _go_.” Caleb’s voice is heavy with urgency as he joins them and tenses his body to race away from the scene.

“Don’t run.” Caduceus orders, and quickly adds as Caleb’s gaze turns towards the new screams being released by Vence. “And don’t look back either. He’s just paid the price for both. You must never run from anything immortal; it attracts their attention.”

Yasha and Caleb follow his lead as he strides with intention towards the edge of the ring of carts, to the banner that marks the carnival. Caduceus fills his mind with memories of his dying home, songs that the butterflies used to sing, tries to remember the names of his siblings, anything except the harpy least he draw that creature’s attention. As they slip into the shadows of the forest, he lets his horn glow to light the way. Caleb and Yasha stay at either flank, staying as close to him as they dare, but never touching.

He never does quite remember what he called his brother and sisters.

By the time that the harpy is satisfied with his work and he takes to the skies again, the three of them are nowhere to be spotted. All that remains at the desolated Midnight Carnival is a single hyena, weeping in her cage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was casually working on this chapter while watching ep 114 live, and literally started sweating right before they cut for break,,,,, she got exactly what she deserved xoxo


	6. Three of Cups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just want to make a quick note here since it's been a long time since i've updated this fic and i have changed some tags. cad's sexuality wasn't confirmed at the last time of posting, and while i've had a lot of fun writing teahaw, i don't plan on creating any more shipping stuff for cad in the future. all that really affects in this fic is some minor endgame details, but since i've changed tags i feel i owe an explanation to people who might be surprised seeing this update. i've been thinking about this fic for a long time despite completely forgetting to post (adhd is fun like that), i'm just leaving this note here for the next couple updates so anyone who stops to check in isn't disappointed because things have changed a little

Caleb would never weep for the kind of Vess DeRogna, but something in his terrible mortal heart still ached for what he had been responsible for, in a way that he couldn’t keep bottled up. “That woman… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know.”

“She chose her death long ago.” Caduceus remarks from where he’s standing, back slightly turned towards the pair resting under the tree. He had refused to sleep the previous night. It was understandable, sleeping alone is what had gotten him captured in the first place. And Caleb and Yasha were hardly a trustworthy pair. “It was the fate she wanted.”

“Besides.” Yasha adds, terrible scowl in the corner of her mouth. “She wasn’t so helpless. She got what she deserved.”

“Then you two have no regrets as I do?” Caleb hadn’t seen death like that since – since – since…

“No.” Yasha says bluntly.

Caduceus tilts his head thoughtfully. “I can never regret. Sorrow, I can feel that.”

Yasha gives him a knowing smile. “But it’s not the same thing.”

He’s got nothing to respond to either of them. The way they talk, look at one another. It’s like two beings who are trapped in the wrong era and don’t know how yet, but they know one another’s shapes. Caleb had always privately suspected that Yasha Nydoorin wasn’t _quite_ human. “Where will you go now?"

“I’m looking for my family.” Caduceus ducks his head, as if in shame. Like shame is something a unicorn is capable of feeling. “I haven’t seen them in a very long time. Have you seen them, wizard? Or you, warrior?”

Caleb shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anyone like you.”

“Not while I was awake.” Yasha adds with a whisper.

The unicorn is staring at the road, eyes far away. “A butterfly told me of a Gorgon Bull who pushed all the other unicorns away to the edge of the world. Vess DeRogna spoke of a King Ikithon. That is all I know, but then it follows that they must know more. I have to go where they are, to learn whatever they may know.”

At the mention of the king’s name, Caleb feels his veins chill as if ice has been poured in his body. He’d left those lands for a reason, left that man, his legacy, his scorched earth. Caleb knows that whatever the unicorn may hope to find there, it won’t be. Nothing that man touches is allowed to remain pleasant for long.

Caduceus either does not acknowledge or plainly not notice what is surely a dramatic reaction from Caleb. “I owe you both a boon for setting me free. What would you have of me, before I go?”

Yasha settles a hand on the unicorn’s withers. “Let me help you, for luck, for laughter, for the unknown.”

“You may come with me, if you so like.” Caduceus blinks slowly at her, like the unicorn needs to pull her back into his vision. He does not draw away from her touch like he would for most mortals. “I wish you had asked for some other reward for having help set me free.”

Yasha’s smile there is so gentle, so soft and unsure it almost makes her unrecognizable to Caleb. “I thought about it.” She admits. “But you could never have granted my true wish.”

“I cannot turn you into something you are not.” Caduceus agrees, before swiveling his head Caleb’s way. “What about you, wizard? Do you have a place to go from here?”

Caleb fights the urge to shake his head, to beg the unicorn for the right to join him, to ask what he and Yasha were discussing. Despite the burning desire he had to prove himself to this einhorn earlier, he knows now that he cannot face what’s at the end of this journey. “I can’t join you. I’ll stay at the next town we reach and contact the head of my order there, see if I can get respectable work for once.” A lie, but they don’t need to know that. He could grow fond of Yasha, he thinks, now that she doesn’t need to bend to DeRogna’s every whim. But he’s not a fan of risk anymore, not even a well calculated one.

Caduceus nods his head. “If that is what you wish.”

He releases a low chuckle in an attempt to sound casual. “Ja, don’t worry about me.”

Those big lavender pink eyes just blink at him, and Caleb swears for a moment that the unicorn sees right through him, sees him for what he is and all he has done. It’s terrifying, such a deep thing coming from a being so beautiful and pure.

“I’m not.” He reassures him, before tossing his mane and taking up stride with Yasha as she leads them down the road.

There is silence for all of a minute before the unicorn speaks again. “What do you two know of King Ikithon?”

“He’s an old man, ruling over the scraps of a barren country by the sea.” Yasha says.

“The kingdom was soft and green once.” Caleb whispers without much thought, before he realizes the pair have looked back at him with surprise. “It withered, once Ikithon touched the land. Went all hard and grey.”

Yasha shakes her head like a woman who’s grown to expect nothing but this type of behavior from those in power, but the unicorn keeps his eyes locked with Caleb’s. He’s a bit of a disconcerting thing, the way that he talks and looks and is just so terribly honest that it almost makes Caleb’s skin crawl. Caleb had assumed the unicorn was a terribly ancient thing, older than mankind like much of his species, but so much about Caduceus’s behavior ran against that.

He’s young, for their kind at least if not to the rest of the world. He understands the world, but he hasn’t lived in it. That would explain why Caduceus could not comprehend those who broke the most basic rules.

What a wonderful thing to have. What a terrible burden to carry.

Caleb wonders if Caduceus is even aware of it. He can’t be, the way he walks so easy like he expects the grass to part for him before every step. The fact that it often does just that still doesn’t explain the way he moves, careless like a rolling sea on a calm day, commanded by nothing more than the pull of the moons. Caleb can’t remember the last time he felt that free.

They make camp, sleep in shifts, help forage, and drink water purified by the touch of Caduceus’s horn. Caleb is envious in his magic, but not the way that DeRogna was. He has no desire to chain down Caduceus, or to break his ribs open and understand how he works, or to powder down a stolen horn and claim his magic for his own. It’s the ease that it comes to him, how the unicorn has magic flow out of his body like it’s his very nature. Maybe it is. If they had time together, Caleb would consider asking Caduceus to teach him what he could.

Several times, they draw near civilization. Every time, Caleb guides them away, extending his time with them by just another two days. Another five. Longer than he deserves, than he has any right to. They never correct him.

Yasha is a curiosity he doesn’t quite know how to handle either. They are so alike, the two of them, even if they can’t talk about it. Sadness is both their specialties, but they wear it differently. She so visibly grieves for the Mollymauk that has been lost to her, Caleb doesn’t know what to do with it. All he knows of grief is to bottle it up, to tie himself down and bite his tongue until it bleeds. Yasha weeps openly some nights, and though the unicorn cannot understand what she’s feeling he still talks to her about it, tries to help her process. If Caleb feels tears coming, he swallows them and smiles even brighter. He doubts he would even recognize what a helping hand would look like anymore, not after he alone had to put himself back together after everything. Yasha feels so openly and plainly, it hurts Caleb more to look at her than it does to watch Caduceus.

“What about the Gorgon Bull?” Caduceus asks, entirely unprompted one day as they’re on the edge of a rushing stream.

Yasha lets out a brief laugh. “There’s too many tales about him, Caduceus.” She takes the lead on crossing the stream, hopping from steppingstone to steppingstone. “Some say he’s real, a ghost, that he breathes a toxic gas, or flames, or both.”

“What about you, Caleb?” Caduceus is following the path she takes, and asks without turning to look at who he speaks to.

Caleb shakes his head. He’d only heard tale of the Gorgon Bull. He didn’t know what role it served to Ikithon. Then he realizes that neither have been watching for his reaction. “Who’s to say? I too only have heard rumor, and not half as many as Yasha.”

He slips over the last stone, accidently pressing a hand to the unicorn’s hindquarters as he tries to catch himself when he lands. Caduceus flinches where he touches, practically sprints to get Caleb’s hand off him. He doesn’t mean it to be the rejection that it is. He’s just working off the decades of instinct that have kept him alive.

“Sorry.” Caleb offers lamely, unable to even look the unicorn in the eye.

Yasha either is or acts oblivious to their exchange, but whichever it is Caleb is thankful for it. “I don’t think anyone knows if the Bull is there to protect King Ikithon or keeps him prisoner in his own castle. There are so many stories.”

When all they can procure that night is a single orange, Caleb focuses his all of his energy to duplicate the fruit twice over, giving each of them one to eat. He peels all three, tries not to let his eyes fall on the rock that Yasha has overturned in the search of bugs to add to her meal. She hadn’t been satisfied, and had since wandered out of their line of sight in pursuit for more.

Caduceus settles at Caleb’s side, head drooped to the ground. He does perk up when the peeled orange is offered, and gently eats several pieces out of Caleb’s flattened palm.

“How much further?” Caduceus asks.

Caleb shrugs, despite the map burned into his mind that tells him _exactly_ where they are right now. “We’re on the edge of Ikithon’s kingdom. It’s dangerous country here, there’s a village a half dozen miles down the trail, but DeRogna never braved the region.”

Caduceus’s nose twitches as he considers this. “Why?”

Before Caleb can open his mouth to respond, the sound of hoofbeats and muffled whooping arise from somewhere eastwards. Oranges forgotten, he rises as fast as his legs will respond. He knows who’s coming.

“Run, hide yourself,” Caleb commands, doing his best to scale a nearby tree. “We’ll have to hope Yasha heard them too, wherever she wandered off to. We’ll find each other later.”

Caduceus’s ears press to the back of his head as he rises. “Who are they?”

“Outlaws.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a giant hug to all of you in advance who are still bothering to check in on this tiny chapter after, oh man, a three month surprise hiatus. biggest shout out to [ofteasandherbs](https://ofteasandherbs.tumblr.com) for reminding about this au (specifically with [this](https://ofteasandherbs.tumblr.com/post/642498071624908800/somecommonbitch-a-gift-for-you-you-gave-us-last)). their art is always so beautiful, give them some major love for me please!


	7. The Fool

Jester Lavorre hums to herself, soup going cold as she tried to get the strings of her lute to match her pitch. She should have done this earlier, but she’d been stressing over lyrics, so here she was fiddling with friction pegs until she was happy with them. It helps that the flock of folks she’d taken up with were making an active attempt to keep their voices down and appear calm.

They’re waiting on the return of their leader, the Lion Lorenzo who shepherds this group of… adventurers, she’ll call them. His group is as hard as iron and just as unyielding, or so her song will go. Jester’s been one of the hang-ons for over a month now, longer than most of them last. She’s left her mother’s home on rather unpleasant terms with one of the local lords, so it’s not like she’s got anywhere else to be right now. She was planning on using her time away from home to become a famous minstrel, one so legendary that the law couldn’t touch her. And everyone knew the best minstrels told the tales of the bravest heroes.

She may have miscalculated when picking her heroic muses. Maybe.

The moment Jester’s ever-present doubt begins to creep back in, their Lion bursts back into camp. He makes them call him that, insists it’s the title of a brave, powerful leader. If she recalls correctly from her mother’s books, and she does, lion societies are matriarchal. But she won’t be the one to tell Lorenzo that. He’s also lacking any sort of prey, despite the fact he’d claimed he’d been out hunting for them.

As he turns to bellow some order, the pounding of hooves cut him off. He’d sent one of his many lieutenants out to collect donations from the nearby townships, and as coincidence would have it, it seems they’ve returned at the same time. Jester has yet to be allowed to come along to meet the citizens they swear shower them with gifts and adoration. This one was led by Ruzza, one of the few whose chatty enough with Jester to have made a real impression on, though it’s mostly a bitchy one because Ruzza only speaks to her to complain that they have no need for Jester’s minstrel skills, as Ruzza was their resident musician before she came around.

Jester had assumed it was because that Ruzza didn’t like being sent on missions, but she’s evidently handy on them, because she’s returned to them with a humanoid strewn across the front of her horse.

“Well, my dear half-elf.” The richly dressed pale-skinned man extends an imposing arm towards their new arrivals, mouth curled into an uncaring grin hidden by his black beard. “What have you brought us, comrade or captive?”

Jester, not for the first time, is struck by how much she prefers the individuals of this group to their leader.

“I don’t entirely know what he is myself.” Ruzza snorts as she dumps what looks more like a bag of bones in a dirty coat than the human that it is to the hard earth. Much of the camp hides chuckles and sneers as the red-headed man pushes himself up with a groan.

“Add more water to the soup, brave one!” Lorenzo calls over his shoulder to a short green figure, another one of the company Jester knows well. “We’ve got company!”

Nott the Brave scuttles out, ducking under the legs of some of the taller figures. Her hood is pulled up, but strands of her stringy green hair still spill into the light of the campfire, standing out against the dirty-white bandages she’s covered most of her bare skin in. She’s not sporting the porcelain mask she usually throws on when they have guests, so her scowl of barred teeth is on display for all to see as she takes in the mess of a man on the ground.

“Who’s this lout?” Even from across the make-shift camp, Jester can see her yellow eyes narrow in suspicion. “I’d sooner throw him in the soup, it’d save me the rat.”

A half-orc woman groans loudly. “Rat soup, again with the rat soup.”

“At least she could use a different rat.” Another complains, a ratty blonde-haired human who’s eyeing up their new guest like she’s considering what he might taste like.

(Unbeknownst to Jester Lavorre, the Lion Lorenzo and everyone else, a unicorn and a mountain of a woman watch their group, from just where the light of the fire doesn’t reach.

“I would gut them all for some rat soup.” The woman says mournfully.

The unicorn shoots her a disapproving look and softly releases a hush from his mouth.

The woman rolls her eyes in a good-natured way. “Not Caleb, obviously.”)

“I won’t be responsible for another mouth to feed.” Nott bares her teeth in the way she does when some of the flock tries to push her around.

Lorenzo palm on the back of her neck, Jester can see his hand flex to put the lightest amount of pressure there, reminding her who’s in charge. “Where’s your Greenwood hospitality, my friend?” He asks, light just not quite reaching his eyes.

“I am Caleb, the wizard.” The other man finally introduces himself, rubbing dirty palms on his pants in an attempt to present a clean handshake to Lorenzo. Jester can spot the grime on his fingers from her spot on the other side of the fire. “You must be the infamous Lion Lorenzo; I’ve heard much about you on my travels.”

He’s going for Lorenzo’s ego, an easy, clean shot. “Why yes, that I am.”

Nott has turned her back to the pair of them in order to retrieve Caleb a bowl of watery soup, but Jester can hear her muttering. She thinks the other woman is hoping the wizard slits their shepherd’s throat.

Jester can’t say she disagrees with her sentiment.

Lorenzo takes the chance to draw Caleb to the fire, filling his ears with tales of the merry men and women he leads out here. It’s very similar to the speech he gave Jester on her first night with them, back when she still had plenty of pretty dresses and trinkets. She’d sold most of them off by now to help acquire comforts for their group. Not that she’s seen a cent of it go back to the camp, but she’s just been trying to do her part like everyone else. Humming again, Jester strums some of the strings gently, much happier with the sound her lute makes now. She plays a handful of songs that she picked up while watching her mother perform, pieces she knows by heart rather than by page. It’s a welcome break from the growing rabble of their camp.

“Tell me, how’d you come so our Ruzza found you hiding in a tree, of all places?” Lorenzo’s voice carries unexpectedly for a moment, and Jester can practically hear half the camp grabbing for their weapons as they prepare for an unsavory answer. If the wizard is a spy who can’t lie enough to cover his tracks, they’ll gut him here and now. Dutifully, she follows suit and lets her lute fall to her lap while she pulls out the only blade she’s got, a rather dull dagger.

Caleb ducks his head in embarrassment. “I’m fleeing a certain king; I fear my talents are no use against his wickedness.”

“Ikithon.” Lorenzo snorts, and you can hear steel sliding on leather as the rest of the flock put their weapons down. No man nor beast is quite so loathed as the king to the west in this camp.

Jester must be the only one to notice how red doesn’t splash the skin across the wizard’s face as he pretends to blush, how Lorenzo naming the cruel king to the east has the wizard freeze for a beat, like he’s afraid. Sure, King Ikithon is a frightful man, but not the type that should drain the color from your face. He’s more bumbling and crueler than outright terrifying, as far as Jester’s been told.

“You must understand” Their Lion Lorenzo’s arms are outstretched now as he begins what is sure to be one of his many larger-than-life tales. “King Ikithon has this bull- “

“At this point Lorenzo,” Nott is in rare form tonight, likely still irritated about the comments on her soup, “I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Gorgon Bull’ is the pet name you give your cowardice. If I have to hear about that beast one more time, I think I’ll take my chances with Ikithon. Even if I couldn’t kill him, death would be preferable to- “

“Enough!” Lorenzo doesn’t stand, but the way his spine goes straight, and the firelight reflects off his bald head, he gives the impression of changing shape and growing twice his size into a monstrous shape instead of man. “My minstrel, Jester Lavorre, was just about to inspire us by singing of the adventures of the brave Lion Lorenzo and his Shepherds. She needs the practice.”

She picks up her lute on command, giving her boss a little nod. She swears she’s as good as invisible to him when he’s not ordering her around.

“Jester!” Nott’s looking at them from the other side of the camp where she’s collecting their dried laundry. “Sing us a true song! Sing us one about Vox Machina!”

Lorenzo rolls his eyes from his spot at the fire. “There is no Vox Machina, they are but a legend.”

Always happy to spite the man and sensing he’s not likely to make much more of a scene in front of their newest guest, Jester strums her lute and begins to hum. The wizard isn’t listening, head bent down and mumbling something in Common her ears won’t pick up over the strum of her strings.

It’s a good song, one of true heroics, bravery and goodness. She wishes she’d been the one to come up with it.

Just as she’s getting to the good part, a strong breeze picks up, nearly blowing the fire into her lap. Jester bolts upright as the wind strengthens, and somehow, the leaves on the trees begin to glow like the leaves have turned into fireflies.

Caleb is on his knees in front of the fire, the only one of the group who’s dared to draw closer. She can hear him now, that he doesn’t have to compete with her singing voice or lute.

“Magic do as you will.” He whispers, bent head letting his hair fall and obstruct his face.

With that, the storm dies and Lorenzo regains that smug, self-assured look her normally wears. “Now that that strangeness is over, let us –“

“Look!” Ruzza calls, pointing beyond Lorenzo’s shoulder to two figures emerging from the woods.

A human man with a shock of white hair and a half-elven woman at his side with a long dark braid wander into camp. They walk regally, heads held high with posture that lesser monarchs must surely envy.

“Sir, Madame, I bid you welcome!” Lorenzo runs to meet them, self-important as anything. “I am the Lion Lorenzo, of the Greenwood.” He bows to the couple, and they walk right through him.

Phil, one of the few boys that had actually been excited to befriend Jester, tugs at her sleeve. “Look, behind them! The Voice of the Tempest, with Pike Trickfoot and Scanlan Shorthalt hand in hand.”

He’s right, the three figures that step out of the shadows next match the stories to the T, from flowing mantle of fall leaves to bright white hair to the spectral purple hand that does all the heavy lifting. Jester’s lute falls to the earthen floor, and she belatedly tosses her skirt over it, some half-stupid attempt to hide her dabbling from the most famous bard in the land.

“Vox Machina is myth.” Lorenzo grunts, giving Nott a disapproving look as she follows the figures into the woods, away from camp.

Half the gathered men are up and chasing the group of heroes as Grog Strongjaw passes by them, treading through the thick underbrush like it’s nothing. The dark form of Vax’ildan takes up the rear, apparently having been granted life again to join this spectacle. 

“Magic is magic.” Lorenzo spits on the fire, eyes harsh on those who remain. “The truth may be dark and ugly, but it is us.”

As she finds herself on her feet and drawn away from the fire, Jester swears she can see a wave of blond hair that would belong to Taryon Darrington. But… that couldn’t be right, he’s on the other side of the continent forming his brigade. _Everyone_ knows that.

That’s when it hits her. It should have struck her the moment Percival de Rolo and Lady Vex’ahlia walked through Lorenzo, when they passed through the fire unharmed. They may be living legends, but it wasn’t Vox Machina before them right now. This was an illusion, what was going on?

Her gaze first falls to their scruffy new wizard. He was chanting for a long time, and the wind didn’t change until after he started. But an illusion this grand a scale? Jester doubts he would have allowed himself to be captured in the first place if Caleb was this powerful. He had help then. Who?

(Although the unicorn never abandoned his watch of the camp, the magic was in fact entirely Caleb’s own. The wizard himself did not know it at the time but the true magic had never left him. It has just been resting, waiting for that moment where it could be let free at his hand.)

Jester, Lorenzo and his second Protto are the only three left in camp. Protto jumps Caleb first, and has locked his arms behind his back. Lorenzo is quick to join, and presses a blade to Caleb’s throat.

“That…” He seems genuinely lost for words in the moment, something like worry in the corner of his eyes, like he won’t know what to do if Caleb does it again. “That was a dangerous diversion, sorcerer.”

“Wizard.” Caleb corrects, looking like a cat who’s got a mouthful of canary

Protto is not pleased with this. “Who knows what you are. We’d best tie him up. Jester!”

She snaps her head to attention, trying to pretend that she hadn’t been considering joining the rest of the troupe in the woods. “Yes, sirs!”

“Help me.” Protto grunts.

Lorenzo is already wandering away, though not in the direction of the phantasmal heros. “I’ve got to piss. I’ll guard him the night, when I come back.”

“In the morning, we’ll see what’s to be done with a wizard who can conjure up Vox Machina. Reckon he’ll be worth something, eh Lion?” The halfling’s grin is just a little too big for his weaselly face. 

It takes everything in Jester not to spit on the two of them. Sell him, a person with a mind and soul who can work magic like no one she’s ever seen? She’d joined this group to tell their tale, one of valor and honor, not… whatever this was. Nott had tried to warn her so many times, in so many different ways. Her gut’s been telling her the same thing. But Jester had played dumb, she’d been so hopeful that they just needed a good patch, a bit of luck to prove that they could be something more. One’s practically landed right in their laps with such a powerful wizard. And Lorenzo’s first thought is turning to slavery so he can profit.

Ugh. Men.

They’re both off, trusting her to finish the job. It takes a while to make it happen without forcing him, but Jester doesn’t want this, admittedly sort of gross, wizard to fear her. She wraps more rope around him, but loosens some knots where she can. Once he realizes what she’s doing, his shoulders sag in relief, and Jester figures it’s safe to talk to him.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers. “I’ll get you out of here if I can.”

“I’m as good as dead anyways.” Caleb says through gritted teeth, trying to make it look like he’s not responding for fear of onlookers. “Run from him. You can’t belong here, not if you’re good.”

“Caleb the wizard.” Jester says with a raised eyebrow as she passes over him again as she pulls at the waistband of her skirt, which she’s folded in on itself to hold her dull knife. “You have no idea what I am.”

“I don’t know what it is to be good.” Caleb whispers as she slips her only weapon to him. “But I’ve recently spent a lot of time around a good thing. You’re like him. Hence, you must at least have some good. I’d wager more.”

Jester bites her tongue to keep her retort back. He needs reassurance right now, not her dry wit. “Pretend to sleep, even if you don’t. Lorenzo is less likely to antagonize you.” With that, she ties her final knot, a big elaborate thing that won’t stand up to any real resistance.

She heads down the hill and gives the weakest nod of acknowledgement to Lorenzo and Protto on her way. Her bed space had always been on the outside of camp, and despite the availability of room closer to the fire, Jester has no desire to mover herself closer.

She settles down, and quickly packs her bag to the sound of Protto chopping firewood. No matter what state the word is in once she wakes up, Jester has a feeling that her time with the Lion Lorenzo and his oh so very merry men has come to a close. Apparently, all she needed was a wakeup call from a dirtbag wizard.

If he’s here in the morning, she’ll find a way to deal with it. If not, she’ll take his advice and run.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos feed my soul, feel free to come say hi on tumblr where i'm [somecommonbitch](https://somecommonbitch.tumblr.com)


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